The invention generally relates to the field of electronic circuits, and particularly relates to the field of minimizing DC offsets in electronic circuits.
Conventional communication systems typically require relatively large gain to increase the amplitude of a relatively weak received signal. Direct current (DC) offsets may develop in such systems and even small DC offsets may saturate the signal path due to the large gain. For example, baseband filters may become saturated, compromising the performance of a receiver circuit. DC offsets may also be present in circuits due to component mismatches within a system filter and mismatches appearing directly at the filter input. Although capacitors may be used to couple components of a communication circuit, in some cases such capacitors may require a significant amount of silicon area in fabrication. A low frequency pole may also introduce undesired transient voltages that do not settle sufficiently quickly.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,848 discloses a conventional DC offset correction loop circuit that requires that the system input signal be removed from the input channel during offset calibration. In particular, the receiver portion of the circuit is first shut down by disabling either a low noise amplifier or a local oscillator to remove the system input signal, leaving any non-zero offset that may exist. The offset signal is amplified and the amplified offset signal is fed back to a sign bit generator where a sign bit is generated indicative of the sign of the offset voltage. The voltage is then changed by adjusting the input to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The routine is repeated until the offset is compensated to within the least significant bit of the DAC and the code in the DAC is then held while the signal is reintroduced into the channel. The offset calibration routine is disclosed to be run at system initialization and when the offset exceeds a threshold value.
In certain systems, it is desirable to correct for any offset during operation of a primary circuit without interruption. U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,668 discloses another offset correction circuit in which the output signal is provided in a digital form. This digital output is disclosed to be fed back to a digital accumulator that is coupled to a DAC via control logic to correct for any digital offset. Because of the finite resolution of the feedback DAC, there may be an offset residue in the channel. This residual offset may result in the digital accumulator alternating the DAC code above and below the desired correction point within one least significant bit of the DAC.
There is a need therefore, for an improved system for correcting for digital offset in an analog signal processing system, and in particular for an improved system for efficiently correcting for any digital offset without interruption of the processing of the analog signal.
The invention provides a direct current offset correction system for use in an analog signal processing system. The offset correction system includes a comparator unit for comparing the polarity of signals from an analog signal channel and producing a binary output signal. The system also includes a digital accumulator unit that is coupled to the comparator output signal for providing an accumulated average signal over a predetermined period of time. The system also includes a threshold corrective signal unit for determining whether the accumulated signal is within a defined threshold window of acceptable values. The system further includes a correction unit for applying a corrective current to the analog signal channel.